Tell me what you think about Oliver James.....

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

.....have been reading his column in Guardian Family every week with feelings of indignation and horror, mostly.

Now this week he says "There is now overwhelming evidence that Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder and behaviour problems are directly caused by maternal stress during pregnancy."

Seems like a very definitive and bold statement - is there this evidence? I know nothing about ADD and ADHD, so please can someone with more knowledge tell me, is this man right or just grinding his particular axe? (He's not keen on early years childcare, either, is he, IIRC?)

Here

Well I wonder why my so called stress during pregnancy only resulted in 1 dt having ADhd and the other Dt being as far removed from ADHD as is possible to get

Well, not everyone who smokes will get lung cancer...doesn't mean there isn't a link.
But in this case, there is still much more evidence that ADHD is mostly linked to genes rather than maternal behaviour or stress. But there does seem to be link between eg smoking and stress and ADHD in some cases.

I'm all for his suggestions that women in pregnancy should be better supported, e.g. with maternity leave extending to cover the last trimester.

I agree with much of what Lauriesfairycake says.

This isn't a new idea - I remember reading some research on it before although the stress had the greatest impact in the 2nd trimester if irrc.

He has an unfortunate tone and maybe be too firmly rooted on nurture side of the nature/nuture debate but that is no worse than those who think that children's personalities are entirely inate (how depressing would that be - that you have no influence on the way your child turns out because it was all decided before the child was even born). However, that doesn't necessarily mean that he is wrong in this instance. I doubt, like autism, there is only one cause of ADHD. For some it will be genetic but not all.

I also think you are asking a lot of an article in a newspaper to be a balanced critique of all evidence. That is not the point of it - it is not an academic paper - it is designed to provoke a reaction, which clearly he has got.

Not every stressful pregnancy will lead to a child with ADHD. There would most likely be an innate propensity to be affected more or less by stress hormones. The obvious example is that more boys than girls are generally believed to have adhd, add etc.

I don't think the message should be dismissed out of hand just because you don't like the messager or his method of delivery.

hmm, not too keen on the article and they way it was written, too mcu of a sweeping generalisation IMO. I had an incredibly stressful pg with dd and she's very reactive and emotional I do worry that it may have been my fault, but the way the column is written is just going to contribute to the ever increasing barrage of information aimed at making parents feel guilty.

I'm currently pg with number 2 and have suffered a fair amount of stress this time round too, work has been far from helpful, and in fact has been the main cause of stress. I do agree with him on that score, as a working woman you should have more rights and better conditions at work, longer maternity entitlement and more opportunities for flexible working/working from home and other options.

I'm very interested in maternal mental health issues from a personal and professional perspective. Maternal mental well-being needs to become a goverment priority to prevent generations of attchment and behavioural difficulties being repeated in the same old ugly cycle again and again.

I work in CAMHS, most of our referrals are for ADHD/behaviour. Some are "pure" intrinsic ADHD, i.e. no obvious attachment/parenting/social issues but a very lively inattentive and distractible child intervention ADHD specific parenting course and meds if they want it.. Some are more complex and may receive a more muti-systemic intervention e.g. family therapy, individual therapy for the parent(s) e.g. if Mum has a horrendous attachment history of her own and meds if they want them. Some are not ADHD and NICE guidelines stipulate a Webster-Stratton parenting course as a first line intervention, but not meds, often not received very well TBH.

For some children being on meds transforms their school life (for the better) and re establishes their rock bottom self-esteem surely not a bad thing? Some parents too, choose to only give it on school days as they can cope with their exuberance at the weekend!

As for psychotherapy, what a lot of these proponents of counselling and psychotherapy for children don't seem to understand is that you have to want it for it to work! And most kids who come to our service for ADHD don't "want to talk" it distresses the hell out of them, trying to force it. Positive activities and play maybe but not "counselling". families have to want, beleive in and be ready for family therapy too. This panacea of "psychotherapy" isn't a cure all and really doesn't suit everyone and people like this person stipultaing that it should just be implemented in place of meds is far from helpful.

I was incandescent after reading this. Loved the constant refrain in the article of 'overwhelming evidence', 'large body of evidence', 'latest evidence' etc without ever referring to what this evidence actually consists of. And the last trimester of pregnancy just is stressful in itself for many women - add in to that all the usual life tensions, plus possibly other children, it is not possible to avoid stress at that time, I know no-one who breezed through that particular chunk of their lives.

By msled on Sun 19-Jul-09 20:46:11
"There is evidence that ADHD is not entirely genetic but can be made more likely to occur, when, for example, women smoke when pregnant (which could be a marker for stress of course) and by if the mother is stressed. "

Are you sure the causality goes in that direction? Couldn't undiagnosed ADD or ADHD in the mother make her life more stressful? Her DC could obviously inherit those tendencies.

He's one of the reasons the Guardian comes last in our hierarchy of Which Paper We Buy On Saturday If The Corner Shop Has Sold Out Of The Times.
Love the Adrian Mitchell poem, Vulpus.

of course it is possible that women with undiagnosed (or diagnosed!) ADD/ADHD are more likely to smoke or be stressed when pregnant, but I would imagine (not sure without going back to the research) that the researchers might have looked at the profile of the mother to rule that out. I do agree he is wildly overstating the strength of the evidence to support his assertion, and that this is very unscientific.